Lockheed F-104 Starfighter | The worlds first Mach 2 fighter

Video from the channel The Atomic Cafe about Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 9:14. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

An overview of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter: why it was commissioned, how it was designed, its early problems, its records and a career much longer outside the United States than within it.

The Korean War, the first with jet-to-jet combat, exposed the superiority of the Soviet MiG-15. Kelly Johnson, founder of Skunk Works and formerly chief engineer of the P-38 Lightning and the F-80 Shooting Star, spent a month at bases in Korea asking pilots what they wanted: speed. Lockheed approved the design on 31 October 1952, and the XF-104 prototype flew in 1954 at Edwards Air Force Base. By the time it reached production, the Air Force had bet on long-range interceptors with heavy weapons loads, such as the F-106 Delta Dart, and the F-104 — with its thin wings, limited fuel and light armament — found its place with allies such as Germany, Italy, Japan, Denmark, Canada and Norway.

Automatic pitch control was added to correct its tendency to pitch up. The initial ejection seat fired downward, and a fault in the early J79 engines, which closed the compressor blades on takeoff when the aircraft overheated in the sun, cost 21 pilots their lives. It measured 21 feet in wingspan and 54 feet in length. On 7 May 1958 Major Howard C. Johnson reached 91,243 feet, and on 16 May Captain Walter Irwin set 1,404 mph at Edwards; in 1963 Major Robert Smith climbed to 120,800 feet. The J79 produced 9,300 pounds of thrust and more than 14,000 with afterburner. 2,578 units were built and the last one was retired in October 2004; the United States bought 296, all out of service by 1969, and in the Vietnam War it flew 2,937 combat sorties with 12 aircraft lost.